NYE bottle share at Proof. Pours a perfect light amber brown. Really good amount of cream colored head. Head and collar last really well. Aroma is biscuity, caramel and some floral hops. Taste is wonderfully the same. Well balanced and delicious. Great medium body and carbonation.

Brooklyn’s Silver Anniversary Lager opens to an initially hop-strong aroma, pink grapefruit, lemon oil, and bits of dandelion stem and pine resin wafting from the bottle. These fade after a few seconds, revealing a dark, fruity base, with fig, date, blackberry, and black cherry fruit esters mixing with molasses, brown sugar, and vanilla, and these atop chunks of thick brown bread, yeasty wheat dough, and floury baguettes, to form a lovely doppelbock base. As a whole the nose is very nice, being well balanced and offering a wide variety of aromas. It does suffer a bit from a lack of strength, but is still remarkably persistent for its potency, the dark fruit esters and sugars being especially nice.

On the tongue, the beer is hoppier than expected, with pink grapefruit, grapefruit rind, lemon oil, and touches of mint and eucalyptus coming across in medium strength. The sugars and dark fruit esters come in after a second or so, adding fig, date, and cherry fruit esters, as well as brown sugar and faint bits of vanilla and molasses. The bready notes are lighter here as well, with floury baguette and yeasty rising dough still present, but in lesser quantities. There are also underlying touches of toasted pecan and toast crust, the faint burnt notes playing nicely off of the breads. The aftertaste is a continuation of the main mouthful, with larger bready notes emerging as the sugars die off. Mouthfeel is medium-light to medium, and carbonation is medium to medium-high, fizzing on the tongue.

Overall, this certainly isn’t bad beer, and the 9% ABV is hidden very well, but it does lack a certain something that would qualify a beer for such an important anniversary. It seems rather watery and fizzy as a whole, coming across as times more like a cola than a beer in mouthfeel, and the flavors are more muted than in many doppelbocks. The hops also take a bit too large of a chunk of the profile, further masking the bready, fruity notes. More balance and more oomph would have served this beer well.

Taste: Like the aroma previews, a toasty, bready taste of malts with a solid bitter and drying hop presence. Bready toasted malts upfront with a big taste of biscuit, toasted bread, caramel, toffee, yeast, and grain. Subtle roasty notes of chocolate. Big nutty taste and a little brown sugar sweetness. Light taste of honey. Subtle undertones of dark fruit with notes of dates, raisin, fig, and prune. A very solid hop balance with bitter earthy and floral hop notes. Some spicy and grassy notes as well as citrus notes of orange peel, grapefruit, and lemon. A very good taste.

A- Silver Anniversary Lager pours a nice light brown/orange amber color with a slightly off-white head that booms at first and then slowly retreats. Quite a bit of nice, bubbly carbonation keeps a quarter inch head lingering.

S- Malty notes are dominant with actually some surprising spice as well. Nothing deeply roasted but more lightly toasted notes that produce a sweet, caramel-esque aroma. Hops are present, actually a little more than I was expecting which is a pleasant surprise.

T- This beer is rich. A deliciously smooth malt character comes through in the beginning that actually opens up into some fruity notes, perhaps red apples.

M- Home run right here. This beer is ridiculously smooth. The malty richness of the beer gives it a perfect medium body and the bottle conditioning gives it some superior drinkability. Somehow, it is also thirst-quenching as well? I'll tell you what; the 9% abv is hidden well, too well...

O- Another rock solid beer from a rock solid brewery. I really hope this is not a one-off and they continue to brew it in 2013. I would love to have this one again. Great stuff Brooklyn! Keep it up!

(Served in a stemmed strange)
A- This beer pours a clear slightly dense garnet-brown color with strands of tiny bubbles supporting an egg cream head that turns rocky after a few sips.

S- The cream and fruit ether turns into an alcohol smell in the finish with some green woody hop notes to it.

T- The dry woody malt flavor leads to a Noble hop bite in the finish. There is some sweetness in the finish with an alcohol heat lingering. As the beer opens there is more of a mineral taste and some watery notes that grow.

M- The light mouthfeel has a creamy fizz texture and some alcohol heat in the finish.

O- This beer is a bit odd in flavor and aroma. The light flavor has strange qualities to the malt and hops and the alcohol seems to grow and dominate the flavor.